[Nepomuk] The Semantic Desktop Wants You: Use tags (and other metadata) everywhere

[Stefanos Harhalakis]

Hello,

Regarding this post:
http://dot.kde.org/2009/10/22/semantic-desktop-wants-you

Here is a wild idea (that I also partially suggested to the N900 people):

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Vision:

* Provide more humane file handling
* Allow a user to locate files not by filesystem location but by tags, type 
and other metadata. Most important are the tags
* Allow applications to locate files/data by tags

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Sample schenarios:

* Visit kde-look and download a wallpaper. Save it wherever you like and tag 
it as "wallpaper". After that, whenever you visit desktop settings you could 
be presented with all images in your disk(s) that are tagged as "wallpaper". 
Perhaps sort them by reverse date or have a view where most recent 
"appropriately tagged files" are listed and immediately find the last 
wallpaper.

* Download an audio file (e.g. mp3) and tag it as "music". After that amarok 
can automatically include all files that are tagged as "music"

* Download a couple of PDF files: One is tagged as PHD, another as KDE-tech 
and another as Request-form. Whenever you attempt to open a PDF file (from 
okular) you lookup for all "PHD" files (plus the recent "appropriately tagged 
files" feature) and voila.

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How to do it (as far as I can think of it):

* Be persuaded (and persuade others too) that file tags are essential in file 
handling.

* Introduce the concept of file type. This is required in many places. This 
does not have to do with "PDF" etc. It may be more convenient to have 
Document/PDF (a'la. mime-type).

* Introduce namespaces for tags. There can be a "System" namespace to serve 
some system activities with (fixed tags (System:wallpaper, System:KDM_Theme, 
System:Plasma_Applet, etc...).

* Provide a two-way file handling (open/save/etc) dialog: Imagine the well-
known "open file" dialog with two tabs: One for "file-based" file handling and 
one for "tag-based" or "semantic" file handling. Thus we will be able to 
locate files either the old way or using tags (and other criteria)

* Extend core applications/settings to auto-lookup files by tags. E.g. the 
wallpaper handling.

* Allow helper apps / plugins to extend the act of file tagging. For example, 
a plugin could suggest tags based on its own critera (source of download, file 
type, file name, current application, user settings, etc...)

* Perhaps: Allow for "file searchers" / "locators" (a.k.a. dynamic tags). 
Imagine that existing (static) tagging is just a plugin and there can be other 
such plugins with dynamic capabilities. A plugin for example could lookup 
"wallpaper" tagged files in web-sites. Another one could auto-search DVDs, USB 
sticks, external disks, etc. A third one could locate images that are URLs 
from kopete's history and either list them under a predefined tag (App:Kopete) 
or under more dynamic/automatic tags (Type:Image, Image_Size:1920x1200, 
Light:Dark).

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I hope I tickled your minds :-)

p.s. Please CC me. I'm not subscribed to the list.